I'm an English teacher in Vietnam. I learned English at school and
then in university. I still now teach myself. But I find that my
English is not good enough, especially speaking and listening. I often
listen to BBC news and Star movie channel although it's not easy to
understand. I also use English in my class but it seems that my English
is Vietnamese English. I wonder if I have learned a wrong way and if
there are better ways to improve speaking and listenning and if these
skills can be self taught.
Comments
Rob Lewis
Nopporn Uearattanapong
According to SLA theories that I have studied, I think the ways you did to improve your speaking and listening skills are good enough. However, the matter is how long and how often have you done that. One thing that I would like to recommend is that looking for chances to speak with native English speakers. Remember, practices make perfect.
Comment from sm_nu
mangay
of course kim you can improve a lot.first of all remove your inferiority complex.mother tongue influence in spoken english is quite common.please avoid watching your linguistic movies,songs or news for some days till you become an efficient speaker with a bbc style.instead you can watch english movie channels,listen to bbc news or english music channels as per your taste. in the meanwhile involve in english seminars and conferences as many as possible.by participating in those, you will mingle with the groups speaking standard english.while conversing with them.you are automatically accomplished to their style. moreover contribute in conferences with your oral presentaions then and there. by regular practice of the above you can develop your own style
with love
dr.mangayarkarasi
lord.one
listening is the first step for learning English then speaking so you can neither read nor write. the more you listen the more you speak and so on
this is my advices
1- you should keep a huge mount of vocabulary
2- prcatice them through dialogue ..... etc but alone ( by yourself)
3-then listen some cassette ,news, films and so on
4- you can prcatice with some native people through internet
englishhh
I agree with you but I also disagree in one point. Before I thought that the best thing you can do to improve your English is to talk with native speakers until I went to a conference with professor David Crystal and he mention the new English World: The Englishes. He says that English is now a language that has become so international that you must think that now you talk with people that their first language is no English. For example if you meet somebody from Germany and you dont have any idea of to speak German the language for communication will be English. Of course he will speak with his german accent, with some misunderstandings and many other things that it won't be enough not only knowing English. He also gave himself as an example when he went to South Africa. His first language is English because he is british. He couldn't understand what is a Robot until he found out they were talking about the traffic jam. For him was also a surprise. To conclude is the student must have other context also with people form other countries.
Liliana Rodriguez Vega
"I think luck is the sense to recognize an opportunity and the ability to take advantage of it... The man who can smile at his breaks and grab his chances gets on."
S
englishhh
Have you thought about living for a while in a English speaking country?
Liliana Rodriguez Vega
"I think luck is the sense to recognize an opportunity and the ability to take advantage of it... The man who can smile at his breaks and grab his chances gets on."
S
laxman_gnawali
Hi Kim,
I have an interesting story about how I improved my spoken English.
If you see my biography you will see that I went to a Sanskrit school up to Grade 10. Later, I went to a College where they offered English teacher training on an academic course called Intermediate of Education (I Ed for short, and a degree required for enrolling to B Ed). I completed this course and enrolled to a morning BA programme. In order to support myself, I looked for a teaching job and found one in a private primary school. So far I had not used English for a real purpose, but this school required everyone to speak English while inside the school premises. It was an English medium school.
Once in the school I found out that most teachers had my problem: “centipede problem”. (Someone asked a centipede: which leg do you move first? The centipede thought hard to see which leg it actually moved first. The result was that it did not move any. The thinking was so hard.) We had learnt grammar so much that we thought of correct expressions and it took ages before we said anything. We often used Nepali when we failed to find a correction word. We had a very low proficiency. So one day, we held a meeting to discuss how not to use Nepali and how to develop fluency in speaking. We made a rule:
IF ANYONE USES ANY LANGUAGE OTHER THAN ENGLISH INSIDE THE SCHOOL PREMISES, HE OR SHE WILL TAKE ALL TEACHERS TO A RESTAURANT AFTER SCHOOL.
We were not paid well and we had to develop English. So, we spoke English all the time. Making a slip meant about a week’s salary gone. Our school now became a really ENGLISH ONLY ZONE, except for a few good evenings. Within one year I saw that I was used to speaking English normally.
The conclusion is that if you can create a situation in which you HAVE to speak English, the fluency will take care of itself.
Is there a similar possibility, Kim?
Laxman
Peter.clements
Peter Clements
Dear Laxman
Your parable of the centipede is so apt! It is something I will show one of my classes of Nepalese students here in the UK. One of them, Asha, a pre-intermediate level student, has an excellent grounding in English grammar from her schooling in Nepal, but she finds it hard to put it into practice when speaking, and worries about mistakes in accuracy.
Yet sometimes, another speaker, with a lesser knowledge of grammar can speak with greater fluency,closer to a native speaker who has acquiredy their first language naturally.
It makes me liken it to two kinds of musician. The first is the classically trained musician who has studied theory and can read and play expertly anything that is put before them so long as it is written in conventional notation. The second type is the improviser who is able to adapt and play a range of pieces 'by ear' without reference to any notation. The improviser has a natural 'feel' for the music and is naturally rythmic and inately able to apply the rules of tone and timing.
However, the classical musician is generally unable to improvise without structure and the improviser is often unable to read notation and understand the theory. Fortunate is the musician who is able to both - they can play in formal concerts as well as participate in an informal 'sing along' with friends.
Can this be a similar situation with second language language use? After all, many students of ESL know the rules of grammar sometimes better than some of their teachers and certainly better than the average native English speaker in the street! Yet the L2 speaker knows the theory and wishes they could use it fluently whereas the native English speaker has all the inate skills and is able to continually 'improvise' without necessarily needing to 'read the music', they are like the centipede that doesn't often need to stop and think!
Thanks Laxman - any thoughts on this?
Peter
Ajit Singh Nagpal
The best way to do this is to get a good tutor who can show you the correct pronunciation by demonstrating to your how the word is pronounced or the sentence is verbalised. The tutor should be able to show you with his mouth movement and explain the location of the tongue during pronunciation. Then he or she has to break the word up into sylables and have you practice the pronunciation. Choral practice is the best by repeating the pronounciation.
Without a tutor you will have to listen to regular communication in the accent you wish to acquire and follow. Another way is to get a dictionary with a CD. Usually the CD has pronuncaitions of the word and sometimes sentences in both the American and British ascent.
I believe this should help for a start.
giganick
Hi Kim,
On the premises:
then I propose to improve your listening skills, repetitive listening. Use scripted tapes, scripted movies, scripted speeches, anything where you have both the audio and the script. You can do as much pre-listening without the script as you want; but I feel essential for learning is the listening once you know the contents. When you know the meaning in your mother tongue, and can associate the parts of audio with ideas (words, grammar, etc), each time you listen again, neurons are developing in your brain to strengthen this association. Listen again and again. From point 2, I recommend shadowing and pure simple script reading to assist both your speaking and listening. As a teacher of very large classes, after every listening exercise, I have the students shadow, read aloud the text (repeat after me) and make a perfect translation, and then I have them listen a few more times.
Basically, it's kind of brainwashing yourself to understand.
Good luck!
Nick,
High school teacher, Japan